


We Bloom in the Night

by HoshiHikari



Series: Chasing the Moon series [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Au of another fic, F/M, Hanahaki Disease, Romance, two idiots full of love and idiocy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28764774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoshiHikari/pseuds/HoshiHikari
Summary: It's called "lovesick" for a reason.
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Chasing the Moon series [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2108856
Kudos: 6





	We Bloom in the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Hanahaki AU of my other fic "Chasing the Moon" (not complete yet, but reading what's there will probably help you understand what's here).

Like most things in her life, it begins during rehearsal.

A tingle in her throat, a small fluttering in her chest. At first it just feels like the beginnings of a cold, and when she mentions this to Arai, he fusses and reminds her to take her vitamins and sleep a lot and push fluids while Megan wrinkles her nose and avoids Naomi for the rest of the night.

She goes home that night with an extra pack of vitamin-C, courtesy of her worrywart dance partner.

~.~

By home, what she really means is Kei’s house for dinner, as is their Thursday night tradition. By that point the tickle has worked its way into a small cough, few and far between, but persistent too. He greets her at the door in the midst of a moderately bad fit.

"If you're sick, I'm not sharing food with you," Kei deadpans upon seeing her. As soon as her coughing is through, she takes the time to roll her eyes at him.

"You never share food with me anyway."

~.~

Dinner passes without much fanfare, but with her stupidly persistent cough refusing to go away.

Afterwards, she and Tsukishima find themselves doing homework in his bedroom. And that's when things escalate.

Naomi is tapping her pencil thoughtfully against her notebook, rereading the definition of a limit, when another cough starts to bubble up past her throat.

Only this time, the sensation doesn't tickle or itch: it burns.

Pain blooms in her chest as she gags, ignoring the very uncharacteristic, very concerned expression Tsukishima is wearing as she scrambles to her feet and dashes to the bathroom down the hall just in time to cough something out of her throat, the oddly light object landing into the porcelain bowl of the toilet.

Her eyes slowly unscrew as she wipes a bead of sweat from her brow, only for her body to go cold at what she sees.

A flower.

A pale, white moonflower.

She recognizes it immediately. A moonflower vine grows on the tree separating their houses in the summer, and at night it blooms in beautiful blossoms of pale, milky white. When they were younger, they would climb into the branches together in summer evenings, admiring the blooms while Kei insisted that he was only there to catch her "dumbass klutz self" if she fell.

But that's a reminiscence for another time. Or perhaps for no time, ever. She might not have very much time left.

A voice jolts her out of her thoughts.

"So you really are sick. Why did you go to rehearsal then, idiot?"

Kei is standing in the doorway of the bathroom (she'd left the door ajar in her haste). If she weren't loopy with an ice-cold dread, she might have the energy to feel happy about the way his eyes soften before his next words. "What's wrong?"

A single word pulses through her veins.

 _Lie_.

"N-nothing, just a stomach bug, I guess. I'll be fine, you head back to your room. I don't want to get you sick," she says, quickly clamping the lid of the toilet shut and flushing down the flower before he can see anything.

Kei eyes her with scrutiny before finally taking her word and leaving. As soon as he's out of earshot, she can't help the deep, tired sigh that wheezes its way out of her chest.

* * *

Naomi finds herself unable to sleep that night, instead lying awake in her bed, staring up at her ceiling.

Hanahaki.

Any dancer worth their salt knows about Hanahaki, the disease of unrequited love. After an incident a few years back with the top Russian prima, Angelica Lebenov, contracting Hanahaki (for her dancer partner, no less) and dying of the symptoms, knowledge of the strange disease spread like wildfire amongst the community, often morphing into a teasing cautionary tale about falling for your dance partner.

But this is no joke. This is no whispered rumor or cautionary tale giggled backstage.

She sighs, feeling the air wheeze past encumbering shapes in her chest already taking root and beginning to bloom.

Naomi has a few options. She could wait it out and die in painful, breathless silence, which is apparently about twice as painful as it sounds. She could confess to the object of her unrequited love, which would either end in the curing of her disease or her death from their rejection. Or she could get the flower surgically removed, with one caveat.

Losing the ability to love permanently.

This, to her, seems like the worst possible option. Frankly, she would rather die than live a loveless life. Call it teenage dramaticism. But she has fewer qualms with early death than with life which lacks a vital piece of living.

She sighs again.

"It just had to be you, didn't it?" she murmurs, turning over onto her side and trying to ignore the burning in her chest.

As she falls into a fitful, uncomfortable sleep, a single name floats into her mind.

 _Kei_.

* * *

She doesn't go into school the next day, instead spending her day pretending to have a stomach bug, doing homework, and trying to decide what path to take on the course of her disease.

If her estimations are anything to go by (based on research she did that morning) she has about three weeks before symptoms get truly life-threatening, judging by the rate of her symptoms and the fact that she's already coughing up whole flowers. (Moonflowers don't really have petals, so her disease must have just skipped that step). She's just about to start considering what can be done in three weeks when her phone rings.

Yamaguchi's Caller ID.

She picks up.

"Hello?"

"~Nao-chan! Are you okay? Are you resting? Tsukki told me you're sick!~"

At the mere mention of his name, Naomi begins to cough lightly, feeling something press against the inside of her lungs painfully.

"Just the flu. I'll be fine. What did I miss in class today?"

A tiny voice in her head laughs at that. Truly the model of the perfect Japanese student. Dying of a fatal disease caused, of all things, by unrequited love, and she's still asking about school work.

"~Nothing much really. I'll send you pictures of the notes as soon as I can. I'm sorry, I have to go, practice is starting.~"

"Thanks so much, Yama. Have a good practice."

"~Bye Nao-chan! Feel better!~"

And the phone beeps, signalling the end of the call.

Another lie.

The burning sensation in her chest flares a little, and she finds herself coughing and stumbling to the bathroom.

* * *

"Nao-chan, are you sure you should be back at school? You seem really... exhausted," Yamaguchi comments after she's fallen asleep in class for the second time that day. His dark brows furrow in concern as Kei eats his lunch and pretends to ignore their conversation.

But she can see that his eyes haven't moved from the same sentence in his book for about five minutes now.

Cough-suppressant medication can only do so much for her sleep when she's producing a new, bloodied flower every few hours.

"I'm fine, just recovering. So tell me about-"

A violent cough drags its way up her throat, and Naomi doubles over, covering her mouth with a hand as she slides out of her seat and kneels on the floor, body wracked with coughs.

"Nao!"

Immediately, Yamaguchi is at her side, a soothing hand rubbing tentative circles on her back as she contends with the new, coppery-tasting flower filling her mouth. She considers swallowing it before eventually giving in and spitting it out into her hand, clutching it to her chest.

"So much for 'I'm fine'. Nurse's office. Now," Kei snaps, pulling Naomi to her feet by her (thankfully) flower-free wrist, to the weak protests of her and the stronger protests of Yamaguchi.

"Tsukki, you don't have to manhandle her like that-"

"I-I'm fine, I j-just need some water-"

Another burning, raking round of coughs. Another blood-soaked flower, which she crushes in her palm beside the first. A few crimson drops slide down her wrist.

"Water my ass. You've coughed up so much blood it's dripping off your hand," Kei all but growls, dragging her out of the classroom by sheer force of strength. Not that it takes much: she's pretty weak at this point. "Why did you even come to school?"

She shakes her head wordlessly, another cough wracking her lungs, another flower spilling from her lips to be swiftly crushed in her hand.

All the while, the warmth of his fingers around her wrist seems to light a fire in her chest.

* * *

Tsukishima can't help but feel that he's missing some key piece of information. When they get to the nurse's office, Naomi seems to reluctantly show the nurse something which Tsukishima himself can't see from his place in the doorway. Upon seeing it, the nurse's face pales and she immediately sweeps Naomi into the private resting space, drawing the curtains and shooing Tsukishima back down the hall towards his classroom.

He's not stupid. He has enough common sense to know that when the medical professional looks like she's seen a ghost, it can't possibly be good.

Something clenches in his chest as he arrives at the door to the classroom.

_Stop worrying. It won't do you any good, Kei. If she's sick, the nurse will have a treatment._

The pale, terrified expression of the nurse flashes into Tsukishima's face.

_That was not the face of someone with a solution._

He clenches his fist and forces himself back into the classroom to calm a frantic Yamaguchi.

* * *

The nurse doesn't tell Naomi anything she doesn't already know.

Death. Surgery. Flowers. Suffocation. Confession. The works.

She goes back to class with a note and a prescription for some more powerful cough-suppressants. Upon her return to class, Yamaguchi literally jumps out of his chair, only to be reprimanded by the teacher and told to sit back down by Kei. She tries to smile reassuringly, but is interrupted by her own coughing before giving up and moving to hand a note to the teacher.

He reads it. His eyes widen. He looks to Naomi with an expression of shock and slight horror. She nods and sits down, feeling tired down to her bones.

And then she does everything in her power not to fall asleep out of pure exhaustion.

Kei doesn't say anything.

Yamaguchi stops asking questions.

* * *

It's about a week later when the cat flies out of the proverbial bag.

The team has morning class with Naomi at the studio, and she’s in the middle of calling out a set of reps and demonstrating them when an incredibly intense burning sensation blooms in her chest.

She immediately stumbles, falls to her knees, and clamps a hand over her mouth, the other clutching her chest.

_Oh God, please not now-_

The flowers erupt from her mouth like water bursting from a dam, blossom upon blossom of red-tainted white taking it's way up her throat, sliding past her lips, and falling to the floor, unbidden.

There's no hiding it now.

If not for the flowers, then definitely for the blood.

Vaguely, she can hear the sound of voices shouting, feel a pair of familiar hands on her shoulders, but it all fades into black soon enough.

* * *

When her voice fades into the now-familiar sound of coughing, Tsukishima can't help the scowl that crosses his face as he turns to find her in the studio.

_If she's sick, then she shouldn't be teaching-_

Cold.

That's what blooms in Tsukishima's chest when he sees her, kneeling on the floor, a torrent of blood and- _are those flowers?_ \- slipping past her lips. For all the world, the studio dance floor is beginning to look like a lake of blood atop which dozens of white blossoms are floating.

Time seems to stop.

And then it rushes past.

"Naomi!"

The name rips itself past his lips before he can stop it.

He's at her side in an instant, hands on her shoulders, only vaguely aware of Takeda-sensei and Daichi shouting, of the sound of someone's phone ringing. The only thing in Tsukishima’s range of awareness is her.

He should've noticed it sooner. She's been so unwell for the past several days.

She trembles in his hold, and something burns in his chest.

The flowers don't stop until she collapses into a heap of blossoms and blood.

* * *

_It wasn't supposed to progress this quickly._

That's the first thought she has when she wakes in a hospital bed, a breathing apparatus clamped gently over her mouth and nose, a heavy weight resting on her left leg.

She manages to crack an eye open wide enough to see that the weight is Yamaguchi, asleep in her lap. Behind him, Kei is reading in a chair, having not yet noticed that she's awake.

Naomi attempts to sit up quietly, only to feel her entire chest twist with the pain of a thousand vines curled around her respiratory system. A tiny, sobbing gasp escapes her, and Kei finally notices.

His eyes snap up to meet hers as he fixes her with a long, quiet, unreadable stare, like he's trying to decode her the way you'd unravel a math problem.

And then something truly terrifying crosses his face.

Grief.

Her chest aches, she coughs, and the mask over her mouth fills with blood and moonflower blossoms. Yamaguchi wakes at the movement, panicking upon the sight that he sees, and just as he reaches out to help her wrestle the stupid covering off her face, Kei is there, gentle fingertips coaxing the stupid plastic covering off her face, the blossoms falling onto her chest, a thread of blood trickling down the side of her mouth and chin.

"T-thanks," she manages to wheeze out, running the back of her hand over her mouth.

Kei doesn't say anything. He doesn't snap or make some kind of mocking remark. There's no scowl or scorn in his face.

He looks tired.

And scared.

"N-Nao-chan," Yamaguchi whispers shakily, tears pooling in his dark eyes. Her chest clenches, but in a different way than with the flowers, and she puts a blood-stained hand on top of Yamaguchi's, trying for a weak smile.

"Hey, don't cry. It'll be fine."

"But you're-"

"Getting the surgery," Kei cuts in, face hardening. Her chest clenches, this time burning, and she has to look away, eyes focusing on her hands.

A moment of quiet, save for her rasping breath, passes them by.

And then she opens her mouth to utter a single, resolved, quiet syllable.

"No."

Suddenly, she's suspended a foot off her hospital bed, Kei’s hand clenched in a twisted fist around the front of her shirt, his entire body shaking with more rage than she has ever seen him express.

"Tsuki!"

"Shut up, Tadashi! _You_ ," he spits, nearly pressing their foreheads together, glaring daggers straight into her soul. "are getting the _goddamn_ surgery, or so God help me I will track down whichever bastard is doing this to you and he will love you or he will _die_."

A moment passes. Something begins to bubble in her chest.

She can't help it.

She laughs.

The sound is more wheeze than laugh, and it is clearly not the reaction he was expecting, because he drops her gently back on her hospital bed, pale brows furrowing in confusion.

The irony.

The beautiful, terrible, wonderful irony.

Suddenly she doesn't feel like laughing anymore. All she wants to do is cry.

"You won't find him," she whispers tiredly, coughing, before continuing, "and you can't _make_ him do anything. Trust me. I've tried."

Another wracking cough drags its way out of her chest, and another blossom slips past her lips, dropping in her waiting hand.

A moonflower coated almost entirely in her crimson blood.

She blinks at it with a small fondness. The metaphor of this disease is not lost on her, and in a way, it's a beautiful thing.

Horrible and painful.

But also beautiful.

"Nao-chan, won't you at least try talking to him?" Yamaguchi asks, his dark eyes piercing and pleading. There's an edge to his question, like he already knows something that he shouldn't.

Leave it to their dependable Tadashi to figure things out.

She shakes her head, prompting Kei to release a sharp sigh of frustration and practically stomp his way back to hsi chair, picking up his book and moving quickly to the door.

"I can't be here for this idiocy. Tadashi, call me when you've managed to snap some sense into her empty skull. In the meantime, I can't be bothered trying to convince a coward not to roll over and die."

The door slams behind him.

For a moment, all Naomi can do is stare at the door in a stunned silence.

And then her body screams, and dozens upon dozens upon dozens of flowers burst from her throat, Yamaguchi screaming, a monitor beside her screeching with obnoxious beeps, and nurses sweeping into the room.

For a fleeting, strangely peaceful moment, Naomi reaches the resolute realization that she is going to die.

And then, for the second time that day, she falls unconscious.

* * *

The various members of the team visit her over the course of the next week, Yamaguchi almost always accompanying them. Besides the visits from the Karasuno volleyball club, she also gets frequent visits and messages from Arai, her dance partner, and Megan, another dancer at the studio. It's during one of these visits that Arai asks:

"Who is it?"

Naomi pauses midway through reading a note from their dance director. She looks up to meet pleading, chocolate eyes, Arai's usually sculpted face twisted with worry and grief.

If she looked hard enough, she might have also noticed the desperation. But she doesn't have the energy to look that hard.

"It doesn't matter," she whispers, at which point Megan surprises them both when she begins to cry, thick tears spilling from her beautiful blue eyes.

"Nao, of course it matters," Megan sobs, grabbing the bedridden girl's hand in her own. "What if he could save you? What if he loves you too?"

A small, sad chuckle escapes Naomi's lips, and then it turns into a cough, and then there's another moonflower in her hand, dripping with crimson. Both her friends look at the bloom with trepidation and disgust, and an immeasurable sadness. Naomi sighs at this.

"I can't tell him. Imagine being that person. Imagine the stress and the guilt that comes with it. No matter how much I or anyone else told them it wasn't their fault, it's human nature to put the weight of an event like that on yourself. I can't tell him. I love him too much to do that to him."

Arai plucks the bloody moonflower out of Naomi's hand, staring at it hatefully for a moment before crushing it in his palms, eyes closed, face twisted.

In all her years dancing with him, she has never seen Arai look this way.

"I'm never going to dance with you again, am I?" he chokes, a few tears sliding down his cheeks. Naomi's heart twists as he continues, voice broken and thick with tears. "Why won't you just get the surgery?"

She smiles softly, laying her unstained hand on his clenched ones.

"Arai. If I got the surgery, you wouldn't be dancing with the same person anyway. Imagine dancing a pas with someone who has literally forgotten love. It can't be done," she whispers.

"I wouldn't care as long as it was you!" he shouts.

Naomi flinches, Megan murmuring something placating, before Arai finally settles again, looking something between heartbroken and remorseful. Both are a bad look for him, Naomi thinks. Joy suits him so much better.

It suits everyone so much better.

"Arai. Megan. Do me one favor?"

They nod resolutely, eyeing her seriously. She tries for a playful smile, weak as it feels on her lips.

"Please don't say anything about me being the new Angelica Lebenov."

The comment has the opposite of the intended effect. Rather than laughing, her two first burst into tears.

* * *

"You've got to talk to him, Nao-chan."

"You know I can't do that, Tadashi. I can't put that kind of pressure on him."

"But you're ... y-you're-"

"And so will he if he knows. You know that as well as I do."

"Naomi, please-"

"No. I won't tell him. He cannot ever know, do you understand?"

“... you would die for him?”

“I would rather die loving him than live any other way.”

* * *

A week and a half in the hospital, and not a single visit from Kei since the first.

She doesn’t blame him, but she aches to see him, even if it will only bring about her inevitable death faster. Which is why she almost doesn’t feel the bloom of pain in her chest when she looks up from her most recent round of well-wishes letters to see him standing in her doorway.

The first real smile she’s had for weeks graces her features.

“Kei!” she calls, immeasurably happy for all of three seconds before a violent cough claws its way up her throat, and she produces two new blossoms at once, stained with blood. She grimaces, more exhausted and apologetic than afraid at this point.

“Sorry. I tell everyone that comes that they just have to get used to the flower-puking thing. I know it’s not pleasant to see, so I apologize in advance-”

“Don’t.”

Her brows furrow.

“Don’t what?” she asks.

“Don’t talk.”

It’s not until he takes a seat at her bedside that she really sees him for the first time.

He looks only a hair better than she feels. Like he hasn’t slept in weeks. Like he hasn’t eaten in days. His skin is pale and dull, his frame gaunt compared to when she saw him last.

He looks like he’s dying.

The sight makes her chest ache and twist and burn anew.

“Kei, you look… sick. Maybe you should-”

“Didn’t I say don’t talk?” he snaps, only to turn away to cough slightly. The furrow of her brow deepens, but after a moment he continues. “You really are such an idiot sometimes.”

Hurt and indignation flare up in her.

“You ghost me for a week and a half, come to see me on my deathbed, and call me an idiot? Really Kei?”

His expression flashes with guilt for a moment before true anger floods his features.

“You’re the one who, for the sake of some nameless, undeserving _bastard_ , is putting herself through this shit. Which _sucks_ by the way. So yes, you’re an idiot-”

“Oh, it sucks for _you_? You’re not the one coughing up fucking moonflowers every minute-” 

As if on cue, she starts to wheeze and hack in what is the worst fit of coughs yet, panicking when whatever the fuck is stuck in her throat refuses to make its way out, instead blocking her airway. After she seizes up in suffocating silence, body shaking, Kei seems to realize that this fit is different, and all of the frustration and anger melts off his face.

“Hey, hey- _cough it out like the others-_ ”

She shakes her head, whimpering as she claws at her throat, eyes watering as her chest burns for air-

“Naomi! Just _-fucking- dammit-_ ”

And then the stupid thing finally rips itself out of her throat, feeling as if it’s splitting her airway open on its way out.

Blood. So much blood, and an entire fucking vine of flowers.

She inhales, luxuriating in the beautiful, beautiful sensation of air filling her lungs. Kei lets out an incredibly deep sigh, falling back into his chair and looking for all the world twice as exhausted as he did when he entered the room.

“That sucked,” Naomi wheezes after several moments, when she finally regains enough awareness outside of her own two lungs to notice Kei.

He’s staring at the vine in her lap, studying the red-soaked blossoms of moonflower like they hold some kind of cosmic significance.

She almost laughs at the sight.

“I did warn you that it's not a pretty sight-”

He looks up at her, and the expression of realization on his face is enough cause all of her words to die on her lips.

“Naomi, I-”

But he’s interrupted by a violent series of coughs, ones that look and sound horribly, terrifyingly familiar. For a moment, Naomi feels as if all of the blood in her body has gone to ice, and she finally understands why everyone kept looking at her the way they were.

And then, finally, a bloodied flower falls into his waiting hand, and at the sight of it, Naomi’s eyes dart back to the vine on her lap.

Moonflower.

In his hand.

In her lap.

Tsukishima Kei has coughed up a moonflower.

The same moonflower growing on the tree separating their bedroom windows.

He finally meets her gaze, looking at her, seeing her, as if he can read the question right off her face, something thoughtful and soft in his eyes.

“It’s you,” he murmurs, gaze falling back to the flower in his hand. He looks at it with the slightest hint of fondness, a feeling she knows all too well. “It’s always been you.”

Something in her lightens, and she finds herself reaching out a hand to press flat against his chest. He doesn’t move to stop her, instead closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. She feels it fill his lungs, feels the familiar rattle and flutter of leaves and blossoms deep in his chest, waving with the breeze of an inhalation.

In that way, as well as many others, they match. Matching breaths. Matching lungs.

Matching hearts.

“He’s not a nameless, undeserving bastard,” she murmurs. "Actually, he's my best friend."

Kei opens his eyes, quirking a brow. Their gazes meet, and she can’t help but smile.

“He is an asshole to sick people, though,” she adds after a moment, and he scoffs, pressing his palm to the back of her hand on his chest, holding it closer to him.

“Only when the sick person in question is an idiot.”

“You just admitted to being the subject of my statement,” she grins.

“You just admitted to being an idiot,” he shoots back, taking another breath. This one is clearer, as if there are already fewer leaves to rattle against the confines of his ribcage. 

Curious, Naomi presses her free hand against her own chest, and finds her breathing clearer than it's been for days, perhaps even weeks. He notices her doing this and tilts his head, brows creasing.

“Does it still hurt?” he asks. She smiles.

“Barely. You?”

He looks away, taking an experimental breath.

“Barely.”

Their hands are still touching. Kei shifts them slightly, so their fingers are intertwined. Like the twisting vines growing on the tree separating their backyard.

A bridge.

A curse.

A beautiful salvation.

* * *

Later, they’ll both exit that hospital free of vines or flowers. Later, they’ll visit Yamaguchi, and he’ll cry for hours over the fact that Naomi and Kei are alright, healthy, safe, _holding hands oh my God_ -

Later, Kei will return to practices with the team to the cheering of everyone in the gym. He will have to endure catcalls and congratulations, and he will have to pretend he isn’t the happiest person in the world

Later, Naomi will arrive at a dance rehearsal unannounced, and Arai and Megan will tell her all about how the company was rampant with rumors and Lebenov comparisons. 

And much, much later, Naomi and Kei will climb into the branches of that tree covered in those moonflower vines, basking in summer sun and the glow of each other’s company, remembering.

But that’s later.

  
  
  



End file.
